Mind control: How a £200 headset is redefining brain-computing interaction

Within two years of its initial breakthrough, Emotiv had logged
algorithms for about 30 "detections" and had produced an early
version of the Epoc headset -- derived from "epoch", the scientific
name for a standard interval of time in data collection. Tan and
Nam's mentor was pleased. "Nam and Tan performed beyond my wildest
expectations," says Allan Snyder. "Dreams always outreach realities
if they have any potency whatsoever."

Now they were ready to begin marketing the product. The Epoc
headset began appearing at game-developer conferences and trade
shows. Users seemed amazed by the strange new technology and often
had unreasonable expectations of the headset. At one conference,
someone asked Tan if the Epoc would allow its user to move objects
in real space, like a chair across the room. She had to explain
that it didn't confer telekinetic powers. It couldn't even read the
users' thoughts. Instead, as a Harvard Business School study of the
Emotiv system said, "it can detect consistencies in brain activity
as a person thinks about the same thing time after time."

The technology garnered a lot of corporate interest, but Tan and
Nam had trouble finding the right fit. Nintendo wanted the headset
just as a complement to its Wii system. Microsoft, Nam says, didn't feel the concept was
far enough along: "They want others to do proof of concepts for
them. If any concept pans out, then they can come in and do it
bigger and better; after all, they are Microsoft."

The most logical partner, Sony, seemed to want a simpler version
of the technology. After long negotiations, Tan and Nam rejected
the partnership. "Dumbing down our technology just to get the Sony
name is risky," Tan says. "This is our first product ever, our
coming out to the world. If we launch something that is perceived
to be too simple or not exciting, it could taint the perception of
the entire category of brain-computer interfaces as capable of
delivering an awesome experience. Imagine if Apple had launched
with the Shuffle, and not with the iPod."

Emotiv shipped the first Epoc headsets on December 22, 2009. Nam
and Tan made the decision not to market it as a consumer device,
which might have led it to be seen simply as a gaming system. The
sample bundled "game", Spirit Mountain, worked well but
was really more a training module. Another package, Cortex
Arcade, had been designed in the early days and had game play
limitations. As the scifi novelist Rick Dakan wrote in a review on
gaming site Joystiq: "Playing slow-motion game of Pong
that's harder and more frustrating than Ninja Gaiden on
its toughest setting is not a happy experience."

Instead, Emotiv sold the Epoc as a kind of open-ended research
device. For $299, a consumer could get the headset with its basic
games and training modules. But for $500, they could license the
headset with the purpose of developing software for it.
Applications would then be sold on the Emotiv website, in the Apple
App Store model, with the sales split 70/30 between the developer
and the company. A $750 "research" package came with more raw EEG
data for the potential developer. For $2,500, corporations could
get the headset, the data and the right to bundle the software
independently with other products they were developing.

Within a few months, Emotiv had 10,000 clients, ranging from
home tinkerers to Boeing, car companies and a billion-dollar
perfumery concern. Its potential applications seemed limited only
by what users' brains could imagine. "They're not all going to pan
out," Tan says. "Some people will do the research, and it might be
too early for them in terms of what the technology can do today.
Others will say we want to use it immediately and have
implementation now. You have to nail it with the developers and
researchers. Even if we were 100 people, we couldn't develop the
plethora of applications that a broad reaching research community
could. It's much better for application developers to develop in
their field."

Tan is now a globe-travelling tech visionary, speaking at the TEDGlobal
conference and charming audiences with her drive and good humour.
"It takes an incredible amount of dedication to get a product to
market, so you have to love what you do," she says. "The idea of
having a brain-computer interface that's compelling and will let
you do so many things will become real."

Her partner Nam Do puts it more prosaically. "Everybody knows
that one day the world will be like this," he says. "We just want
to get there faster."

Comments

Reel-to-Reel to Mind Reading...

Mr Time

Nov 30th 2010

hello!!I need help about emotiv epoc. My brother is paralysis in bed after stroke, Lock-in syndrome, him comunication by eyes yes and no, i want him test about emotiv epoc. how you can help me please. I live in Plymouth uk. Thanks I wait for you message xxxMaria